“Eh?  What, old Purdy?  I don’t think so.  I don’t remember.  Now you mention it, I think I did hear somewhere that Hanson was with Purdy.  But I don’t believe he said anything about him.  I was just going to ask him to come and have a drink, when he said good-bye.  All I know is I saw him standing there like a sorrowful saint.  Then he walked off slowly down the corridor.  He’s a sociable beggar.  I couldn’t help laughing at him.”

5

There was a notice in the window of the Negro Boy, and I discovered that the tavern was under Entirely New Management.  The picture sign over the principal door had been renewed.  The mythical little figure which had given the public-house its name was no longer lost in the soot of half a century.  He was now an obvious negro boy, resplendent in a golden coat.  The reticence of the green window-curtains had become a bright vacancy of mirrors, and the tavern was modern within.  Reform had destroyed the exclusiveness of the saloon bar; instead of privacy, distant mirrors astonished you with glimpses of your own head which were incredible and embarrassing in their novelty.  The table-tops were of white marble supported on gilded iron.  The prints and lithographs of ships had gone from the walls, and were replaced by real pictures converted to the advertisement of various whiskies—­pictures of battleships, bull-dogs, Scotsmen, and figures in armour tempted from their ancient posts in baronial halls, after midnight, to finish the precious drink forgotten by the guests.  In accordance with this transformation the young lady in attendance at the bar was in neat black and white, with her hair as compact and precise as a resolution at a public meeting which had been passed even by the women present.  She was severe and decisive, and without recognition of anything there but the tariff of the house, and sold her refreshments as in a simple yet exacting ritual which she despised, but knew to be righteous.

It was many months since I had been there.  Macandrew was no nearer than Rotterdam, and perhaps would not see London that voyage.  There had been a long period in which change had been at work at the docks, even to their improvement, but through it all not one of my old friends had returned home.  They had approached no nearer than Falmouth, the Hartlepools, or Antwerp, with a slender chance that they would come to the Thames, and next we heard of them when they were bound outwards once more, and for a period known not even to their wives.  The new Negro Boy had not the appearance of a place where I could expect to find a friend, and I was leaving it again, instantly, when a tall figure rose in a corner waving a reassuring hand.  I did not recognize the man, but thought I knew his smile, which made me look at him in dawning hope.  The grin, evidently knowing its power, was maintained till I saw it indubitably as Hanson’s.  He made a remembered gesture with his spectacles.  “I was just about sick of this place,” he said.  “I’ve waited here for an hour hoping somebody would turn up.  Where’s Macandrew now?”